Puzzling Problem

Ok, VV will help with the comprehension problem. The bottom line is they can’t tie the new “vocabulary” into their background knowledge to make sense of what they are reading or decoding. In regards to story problems, EPS has a program called “That’s Elementary to help teach students the vocabulary behind math word story problems. The probably need to be taught a skill to organize and apply what they are asked to do in the word problems.

What I have discovered as an educator is that just becuase a kid is a great decoder doesn’t mean that they have the vocabulary to comprehend. So we do a lot of “buddy” reading, I read a bit and then they read a bit and we talk every few paragraphs to create imagery like VV does. We also draw pictures while we are reading and that helps too with the comprehension.

Get a piece of paper for them to insert in their books when they are doing SSR. it will have two columns, one says words I can’t pronounce and the other words I don’t know what they mean. Have them mark down with a pencil the words that are causing them problems when reading. You may be surprised to find that vocabulary knowledge is a culprit. The other thing it could be is that they aren’t focusing on what they are reading, they could be daydreaming while reading and not making the imagery for comprehension.

Pattim,

My 3rd grade son too has problems with story problems. I think it is a language issue (he has cAPD) For example, last night the problem read something like this.

John had 12 muffins. He had 6 more cupcakes than muffins. How many muffins and cupcakes did he have?

I read it to him twice. Then I had him read it. He kept trying to add 12 and 6—I think he was cued in to adding numbers. Eventually, I asked him how many muffins (12), how many cupcakes (he said six—so I went back to the sentence).

He also is clueless about when to subtract.
Would the EPS program help?

Beth

Yes, It’s Elementary would definitely help your son. It helps them eliminate the foils and get down to the basics of what they are adding or subtracting. It also uses visualization, they draw pictures of the items and cross out the ones they don’t need. It helped my daughter and she is doing well on applied problems now.

So he had 18 cupcakes and 12 muffins for a total of 20 items? The wording is tricky and it is a two step problem which kids with speech and language problems have trouble with. step one is to add the muffins and cupcakes to get the total of cupcakes and then step 2 he has to add this total with the muffins. It is tricky..tell him I got confused too..LOL

I had to look at it twice — I would *definitely* have drawn that one.

I added 30 but I typed 20 chalk it up to my ADD..gee I wonder where my daughter gets her inaccuracy from not moi… GRIN :-P

This is from Math superstars. An “extra” assignment with stars assigned to how hard the problem is. This only had one star but he could do problems with two stars much more easily if they were more straightforward. I see this problem generally with word problems–though.

I will look into the series.

Beth

P.S. Totally unrelated but thought I’d tell you that my son had a soundfield system installed in his classroom yesterday. A little persistance helped. We’ll see how it goes!!!

Beth

This is my son exactly. He has all three problems. My son works very hard an has a huge urge to acheive but just can’t put it together He can recall verbatum what was told to him but can’t get to the next step of applying what he learns

Freyda

let me know how it goes!

I do not have a ld to my knowledge or experience, but word problems were tricky for me. I had forgotten that they really made me work in elem. school until I started helping my son.

We all need to know math but do we need to make it as hard as possible which only makes kids hate it?

Freyda,

Did you see that there is a message to you on the Parenting a Child with LD page from pattim and others?

Janis